Friday, October 8, 2010

Speaking of great giveaways, check out this one from Robyn at Grill Grrrl. Get over there and enter because she is giving away an autographed copy of a Michael Symon's book Live To Cook and all of this great stuff next week:

So anyway, with temps being in the 40's this week, I finally caved in and made a fall dish. To me, apples scream "FALL" so I thought I'd try Adam's techniques/recipe for pork chops (1" or thicker). They were porkalicious.

I adapted the recipe in the following video but there are a few things that made this pork chop a huge hit for us. The brine was very similar to the one I already used but the compote worked flawlessly. The combination of alternating direct heat with indirect heat is genius because it grills the compote onto the pork chops. It creates a natural, sweet bbq sauce (and with no corn syrup or liquid smoke!) that just wraps flavor and texture all over your chops.

Here are my thoughts about BBQ25 after using it for several cooks.

It is nails the concept and execution of it's mission of "A collection of the 25 recipes that we cook 95 percent of the time, using accessible, not too pricey, quality ingredients."

The recipes are solid. We've made a few of them and every one was good.

The book is rich in technique content, not just recipes and uses the techniques across the various recipes, so you build on what you learn.

The physical book itself is designed for being useful while cooking with it's splash resistant pages that won't blow in the wind, hinged spine, and compact size.

It is probably the best book I think you could get for someone just starting off in the world of grilling BUT ......

It will also teach an old dog like me a few new tricks. I have used at least two techniques that I learned from BBQ25 when cooking unrelated recipes so far. To me that is a sign a of great cook book.

You won't regret getting a copy of BBQ25, whether you are new to grilling or if your first time grilling was grilled stegosaurus. (I heard it tastes like chicken.)